I agree mostly with this assessment. China has been fractured by different languages, cultures, and invasions over the last 2 millennia.
That they couldn’t even conquer and dominate the tiny Korean peninsula confirms this.
What China might have historically believed in and wanted to do (at least in one strain of ancient thought) could differ from what it had been capable of till now.
And they did SOME conquering successfully, or we’d never have heard of Sun-Tzu.
Even if Korea proved too hard of a nut to crack, China wasn’t always as big as it is now. Tibet is only part of a trend.
>I agree mostly with this assessment. China has been fractured by different languages, cultures, and invasions over the last 2 millennia.
And yet it’s the oldest continuous civilization. Where as the Romans, the Persians, and even the Greeks are all gone.
>That they couldn’t even conquer and dominate the tiny Korean peninsula confirms this.
China’s dominated the Korean peninsula for most of recorded history. Conquering it outright is a very difficult task due to the terrain but generally Korean kingdoms have been tributary states to China. China’s not much as an offensive conquering power in the style of other empires. But their model has worked well in keeping China Chinese for a very long time now.
Just the Zhou dynasty alone is an impressive and sustained early pinnacle.
But the fracturing you describe was part of the Chinese dynastic survival strategy: they were able to successfully rule over multiple peoples by allowing them to retain much of their own culture.